Repetitive Strain Injury: GIRL FRIENDS
by hakojo
Summary: The Major reflects on one of her longest-standing interpersonal relationships. f/f, SAC continuity.


(A/N: This is kinda-sorta for Lightice, who kinda-sorta asked me to write something about the Major and the Ran/Kurutan unit, although I'll admit that I've had this idea in my head for quite a while already. I actually might write something that's completely about them, because they're a total blast to work with - I always wished they'd show up in the actual series more, just because they're so much fun when they do, and they have the potential to be completely awesome if given more than three seconds of screen time. Reviews welcome, and thank you for reading ^_^)

反復過多損傷 (Repetitive Strain Injury): GIRL FRIENDS

I waited until the harsh breathing had softened to near inaudibility, then carefully pushed away the arm that was draped over my chest and stood up. I had just retrieved all of my clothes from the floor and was in the process of putting them on when I heard a soft groan from behind me, accompanied by the creaking of bedsprings.

"Leaving already, girl?"

"Gotta work tomorrow," I said. Not a complete lie, although I'd neglected to mention that my work was all undertaken at my own discretion and that it didn't really matter if I stayed out late. Still, as I turned around, buttoning my blouse, I put on an exaggerated yawn for effect. I couldn't help but think; over the course of the evening, had any of the verbal or physical output I'd given him indicating the nervous sensations I'd been experiencing been genuine?

"Oh. Okay," he said, and rolled over again.

I never bothered to remember their names. It was a waste of space.

Which, of course, led to the question of what I was even _doing_ there, in the apartment of some guy whose identity I'd erased from my memory only a few minutes after I'd learned it, but I'd been trying to figure that out for the last couple of years and still had no answer.

It was a thing women were supposed to do, right? Go home with the not-unattractive men who were kind enough to buy them drinks and who would at least try to pretend they were interested in making conversation? I was an adult female, after all, and I wasn't about to let something silly like a fully cybernetic body stand in the way of gaining valuable life experience.

And it wasn't like I was out like this every night; about every six weeks or so I'd forget exactly how dull and unpleasant the last occasion had been, and consequently I'd go out in the hope of meeting a suitable candidate to refresh my memory. Then the cycle would repeat itself. Youthful stupidity, I suppose, although even back then I was already beyond having any accurate idea of how old I was. The temporal memories I had stored and their relation to one another made me think I was somewhere between 20 and 25, but I didn't really dwell on it too much.

The problem was that while I did my best to carry out what personal life I had as normally as possible in spite of my prosthetics, they tended to present something of an insurmountable obstacle in this arena. My body had functioning sensation, to be sure -it would have been hard to interact with the world otherwise—but even though my skin sensitivity was the highest currently available, thanks to my government backing, there was still no way to overcome the difference between biological and digital sensation. It was the difference between playing a real piano, one made of wood and metal with felt hammers and steel strings, and feeling the notes and harmonies vibrating beneath the tips of your fingers, and then playing an electronic keyboard, which simply told you what a recording –a very complex recording taking into account the speed, direction, and force of the stroke, but a recording nonetheless- of a real piano might sound like. My skin detected force or temperature being applied to it, and the circuits beneath it sent information to my brain simulating what a human body might feel under those same circumstances. It got me through the day beautifully, but when I subjected it to any sort of activity where physical sensation was the entire _point_, its shortcomings became immediately apparent.

There was always the option of getting on the Net and finding a woman from whom I could borrow some sensory data, but I'd done plenty of that as well, and it was even less satisfying and more emotionally draining. Like my excursions in the real world, it had been interesting the first few times, but then the novelty had worn off and it had just become kind of empty and dehumanizing. Then I'd forget how distasteful my last attempt had been, and the memory would fade out as I overwrote it with more important things, and finally I'd get lonely one night and wonder if it was really as bad as I'd told myself it was. It was like twisting one's arm in such-and-such a way after straining it, just to verify that yes, it did still hurt.

Not that I'd ever experienced _that_ firsthand either.

And so I came to my next attempt at a casual hookup, about two months later, in one of the bars I had occasionally frequented with acquaintances while still a JSDF officer. Going out alone to drink was another thing I'd been meaning to file under the _why?_ category of my personal habits, as most forms of alcohol were only really enjoyable if you were with friends and/or could enjoy their physical effects, but at any rate, there I was, alternating between staring at the bottom of my glass and surveying the rest of the room over its rim.

Suddenly, I became aware of a pair of arms around my waist

I turned my head slowly to one side to find a young woman's chin resting on my shoulder. Her short hair was bleached honey-blonde, and a rosy blush suffused her round face as she smiled at me. I had just opened my mouth, although I still wasn't entirely sure what I was going to say, when a hand, slender, with long fingers and nicely manicured nails, clamped down on top of the blonde's head.

"Oh my _God_, do I have to put a bell on you or something so I can keep track of you?"

I looked up; another woman, this one with long, reddish-brown hair, was standing behind me.

"Ran-_chaaaaan_," said the blonde happily, "look what I found. Can she come home with us?"

"Idiot," said the woman apparently named Ran, throwing herself down onto the vacant seat next to mine with an exasperated sigh. "_I'm _not going to go home with you if you don't cut it out."

"Awwww!"

The blonde detached herself from me and attacked her friend, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her slowly back and forth.

"Ran-_chan_, you're meeeean!"

Ran shook her head, and then looked up at me.

"I am _so_ sorry about her, really."

I was still taking in the strangeness of the situation.

"Don't…worry about it."

"It's just that…well…she likes cyborgs." She raised one eyebrow for effect. "_Likes_ cyborgs."

"…I see."

"Wanna go link with youuu…" said the blonde, still methodically shoving her companion forward and backward.

"Hey! Enough, all right?" snapped Ran, and the blonde immediately let go of her and shrank back. "Thank you."

"Cute pet you've got there," I said.

"I know, right?" said Ran. "Although I've got to admit, she _does_ have good taste."

I turned to face her again; she was giving me that sort of narrow-eyed smile of appraisal that I'd certainly gotten before, but rarely from another woman. She raised one hand and pointed to herself.

"I'm Ran Ozawa." She jerked a thumb in the direction of her friend, now clinging to the back of her chair. "That's Kurumi Taniguchi."

"Kurutan!" said the blonde insistently.

"…Who prefers to be addressed by her Net handle, because she is _weird_," finished Ran, rolling her eyes.

"Mmm," I said in a neutral sort of way, still unsure whether I should sound like I cared or not. It wasn't that I didn't have any interest in women at all; these two were just so far out of my sphere of experience that I really didn't know how to handle them.

Which, when I thought about it, was probably not a bad thing, as my sphere of experience was fairly depressing.

"So, d'you have a name?" said Kurumi, draping herself lazily over Ran's shoulders.

"…Motoko," I said blankly.

"And is that your real body? 'Cause it looks like you just got it out of the box with no options added. Isn't that kinda boring?"

Ran _shhhh'_d loudly and then whacked her in the arm.

"Owww! I was just _asking_!"

"It's all right," I said. "I just like the generic model; that's all."

I'd found that that was good answer to fall back on whenever anyone asked about my body, which happened with surprising frequency – usually they'd just nod and then change the subject. Also, it was much less complicated than explaining that I went through so many of the damn things in conjunction with my job that it wasn't worth the trouble of customizing any of them, since they were just going to get smashed up or blown to bits anyway.

"Even the eyes and the hair, though? I'd get that changed at the very least – don't people stare?"

"_Kurutan!_" hissed Ran.

"You're blonde," I said, pointing. "Does anyone ever stare at _you_?"

"_Yes_," said Kurumi vehemently. "All the time! Especially when I have to be around old people for hands-on training at school – they say the worst things about it!"

"And is that your natural hair color?"

She shook her head.

"Then why do you keep coloring it, if people stare at you and make nasty comments?"

"Because I like it….Oh."

"There you go, then," I said.

"It suits your personality, too," said Ran, leaning up to give her a light peck on the cheek.

The next hour passed more pleasantly than anything I had imagined encountering when I'd left my apartment that evening. Usually I tended to fall awkwardly short when it came to producing adequate small talk, as I had no family, very few friends, and my occupation was something of a covert government secret - all I really needed to do here, between Kurumi going on and on about each and every aspect of her life and Ran adding in details or telling her to stop making things up, was keep buying everyone drinks. And really, given the people I was used to interacting with in my work, listening to the pair of them was refreshingly _simple_. Kurumi was currently in nursing school, of all things, and while she liked the work, she was upset that she didn't have as much time to play tennis or work on the backlog of role-playing games and visual novels that was boxed up in her room. She also really wanted a cat, but her apartment didn't allow pets. Ran was a receptionist at the corporate offices of a chain clothing store, was apparently very good at first-person shooters, and owned a car that she spent much of her weekends modifying; her apartment _did_ allow pets, although she had none. They had met online, had been seeing each other for about a year, and planned to move in together as soon as they found a place.

The thing that fascinated me the most, however, was how they both seemed to just _accept_ me. To be sure, in between stories about odd patients at the hospital or epic battles with the woman in the apartment downstairs who kept moving her laundry, Kurumi pelted me with questions about my prosthetic body, but they were all technical in nature, relating to response time, sensitivity, and energy efficiency instead of the usual inquiries about my everyday existence coping with the thing; Ran, obviously embarrassed by her companion's lack of restraint, made every effort to keep away from the subject entirely. Still, for the first time in as long as I could remember, I really, really didn't mind – I felt perfectly at ease, and wanted to offer as much in the way of reciprocal conversation as I could.

As depressing as it was to admit this to myself, I finally felt _human_.

For nearly the entire time we'd been speaking, Kurumi had been moving casually from spot to spot around me in an attempt to surreptitiously study my body from as many angles as she could. Finally, I caught her by the wrist and stood up, pulling her around so that she was facing me.

"You just won't be satisfied until I strip down and show you the whole thing, will you?"

Her entire face was bright red, from a combination of the alcohol and now embarrassment. Dimly, she nodded.

"Well, lucky for you, I'm in a generous mood."

I smiled and then leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. She blinked several times, apparently confused, and then lunged forward, wrapping her arms tightly around my waist, her face pressed into my jacket. Sighing heavily, I turned to Ran.

"Hey – would you mind too terribly if I borrowed this for the night?"

She studied me for a long moment, and then, slowly, a smile spread across her face.

"That depends. Am I invited too?"

* * *

I'd exchanged contact information with Kurumi as kind of a formality, expecting that, as it usually happened for me, we'd all just go our separate ways. When she called about two weeks later asking if I wanted to go out someplace with her and Ran, I was so taken aback that I said no almost automatically. After a month or so of near religious badgering, she finally managed to talk me into joining them on a shopping excursion – although it wasn't really my thing, I consented simply because I had never in my life gone out and done something stupid, girly, and indulgent, nor had I ever had any female friends to do such a thing with, and I was curious as to what all the fuss was about.

Not nearly as curious, however, as I was about why, exactly, these two were so enthusiastic about spending time with me. I wasn't exactly known for being good company, even among the two or three people I'd describe as close acquaintances, and I couldn't imagine what I had to offer to anyone in a purely social, non-work setting.

That is, aside from my heretofore unknown but apparently quite respectable talent for real-time cyberbrain sensory manipulation, although I maintained that this was something anyone could learn with enough practice.

"Well, duh – we need a dependable designated driver, and you can't get drunk," said Ran, many weeks later, as I dropped her back at her apartment after a night of pub crawling (Kurumi, who'd spent the ride home passed out in the back seat of my car, had already been deposited safely at her own place.) She laughed loudly, and I began to regret asking her so bluntly.

"No, but seriously?" she continued, once she'd settled down. "You're different. Interesting…or something like that. And Kurutan really likes you. She never shuts up about you – says that you're just lonely and you need to get out more."

"If I'm causing problems for the two of you, I apologize," I said at once, and Ran burst out laughing again.

"It's not like that, not at all!"

It took her another few minutes to quiet down again.

"Personally, I agree with her," she went on, and then leaned forward and pressed her lips firmly against mine, lingering for a moment before drawing away. "And I wouldn't mind it at all if you decided to spend the night with us again sometime."

Well, after somewhere between 20 and 25 years of being the girl with the cybernetic body, dutifully chasing down meaningless encounter after meaningless encounter with people who only wanted to sleep with you out of curiosity, how do you say no to two smart, energetic, attractive women actually interested in your personality?

You don't, obviously. You keep them around, and no matter how busy you become with your work over the years, and you try to make time for them wherever you can. You go out drinking together and listen to them complain about work problems, or you drop by for coffee on a weekend and then go out for a walk and some window shopping, because that's what you do with girlfriends. You take care of them and keep them happy, even though you know your own life would never allow for the relationship to be anything other than casual, because sometimes you just need to be around people who don't see you as a commanding officer or a fetish object.

And if you're exceptionally lucky, and the mix of personalities is right, you can keep it going for years, even though you know there's nothing really to go on besides a few shared interests, plus the admittedly wonderful cyberbrain intimacy.

* * *

I disconnect from the external memory box and remove the amplification devices, returning to the physical world. The room has gone dark. I turn my head to one side; they're asleep already, tangled together in such a way that I have to smile. They're just so perfectly, adorably in love with each other that I can't think of them as anything but a matched set anymore.

This is the essence of how we work together; they don't need to rely on me, because what they have already is more than enough on its own. If I have to be away from them for months at a time, they miss nothing, and when I come back, it's something special to be excited about. Part of the arrangement is that they don't ask where I've been or why I can't come over on any given night; they know I'm a police officer now, and have been for the last couple of years, but beyond that, they're perfectly happy not to ask questions. Not that I could tell them anything anyway.

And this is why I can't help but feel a tiny, biting sensation of guilt in the back of my mind when I spend time with them. I have done everything with them, for them, that a good female friend would be expected to do, but we all know it's a façade, a way for me to offer them something to try to compensate for the fact that they know nothing about me. The worst part is that we carry on as if it's a complete non-issue, which just adds to the strain, because how can I even begin to fully reciprocate a friendship that accepts me as I am and is perfectly willing to let me have my secret, other life?

Maybe someday, far in the future, when I'm ready for a career change and none of this matters anymore, I'll be able to tell them everything. Let them know exactly how much it means to me that they've gone along with all of my eccentricities for all these years.

Maybe someday I'll have a simple relationship like theirs, where I don't have to hold anything back at all. Because looking down at them now, wrapped securely in each other, I envy them.

I get up as softly and quietly as I can, replace my memory box and the associated equipment in its storage space, and head for the door.

Time to get back to work.


End file.
